Hello, I primarily use a Focus 14 with my ipad, but I also paired my Brailliant Bi 40 for tasks that require a significant amount of reading. The Brailliant paired ok, but in the middle of writing a text message in the messages app, the Brailliant locked up completely and a bunch of randem characters appeared on the display. The characters would not go away no matter what I did and the ipad ev*ntually became unresponsive as well. I finally got speech to turn back on (I prefer no speech when using my braille display) and was able to hit the home button to exit out of messages, but the Brailliant remained frozen. I ended up having to wait until the screen locked and then unlock it again. The Brailliant reconnected but I still could not get it to respond to any key command. However, once I turned the braille display off and back on again, it was okay. I am running the latest firmware on the Brailliant and the ipad is running Ios 9. Has anyone who uses a Brailliant Bi 32 or 40 experienced something like this with their Ios device? My Focus has never dode this, so I am curious if other Brailliant users have had this happen to them. If so, what did you do to fix the problem? Humanware tech support wants me to reset the Brailliant back to default settings, but I do not feel comfortable doing this since I don't want to lose my usb connection to my pc at "w which is primarily what the Brailliant is used for. Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.
Comments
Update to iOS 10
In previous iOS versions, there was a bug where you can lock up VoiceOver's braille support if you type too quickly on a Brailliant, and I have had this happen to me multiple times both on an iPhone 6 and an iPad Air, which was thankfully fixed in iOS 10, so upgrading your iPad should fix the problem (I'm honestly surprised humanware didn't suggest this to you). If, for any reason you want to stay on iOS 9, then you'll just have to slow down and not type as fast, look at the display and if you notice that characters take a long time to appear, wait for VO to type in whatever you entered before you keep going.
Resetting to factory defaults won't break your USB connection, the paring over USB and bluetooth for that matter is remembered by the operating system and Screen Reader, not the display. Resetting to defaults just resets any settings you may have changed on the display, things like the Bluetooth name, auto-power off timer, whether sounds are on or not, etc.
HTH!
That issue still stands.
I have had many is&se where it would lock up. S this the only Braille display that would do this?
Yes, the only one
Yes, this is the only Braille display to exhibit this behavior. It's a problem in HumanWare's firmware that they either can't, or don't seem to wish to, fix for good. It's one of the reasons I passed over this display when looking for the one I wanted, and why I was so surprised when, of all the various Braille displays, Apple began to sell the Brailliant.
I think it's an apple issue
This is really interesting, I have definitely not seen this happen any more on iOS 10, or on Mac OS for that matter. I have also not seen it lock up in any other context and considering I often work with terminals and text which changes a lot and very quickly I hammer it pretty hard. Also, typing seems to work perfectly fine on Mac OS and Windows, though I don't do it as often on those platforms. Still, this looks to me more like an Apple than a humanware problem.
I'm Seeing The Problem
I just got a new iPhone 7 with the latest upgrade to IOS 10, and I'm seeing the same issue with my NEW Brailliant BI 40. I'm also finding it very, very difficult to pair the Brailliant with the iPhone using the Bluetooth connection.
Interestingly enough, I have a Brailliant BI 32-cell display that I have borrowed, and it seems to work better than the 40. Humanware tells me this isn Apple issue, but I'm not sure I agree. I have several work-related trips coming up in the near future and hope to have Braille on the road with me. Surely someone, either Apple or Humanware, can resolve this issue.